


what we forgot we knew

by fraternite



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 18:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2398421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraternite/pseuds/fraternite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't know exactly what's missing--only that the world must once have contained more light than this.</p><p>Assorted drabbles in a dystopia AU, collected here from tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Enjolras glanced up nervously at the sky.  ”I hope it holds off a little longer.”  

Staggering under the weight of the heavy sack, he followed Courfeyrac under the cracked concrete archway to the storeroom where a pile of lopsided sacks filled one corner of the room.  He dropped his load beside the others and gingerly rubbed his blistered hands on his dirty jeans.

"Hey Enj," Courfeyrac said, as they trudged back outside to the cart.  "What do you think it’s like in, in other places?"

"What do you mean, like on the other side of the river?  I don’t think it’s started there, either—see, the worst of the clouds are in the other direction."

"No, I mean, like—faraway places.  The world is big, right?"

"Seems like it."

"And there’ve got to be people in the rest of it, even the parts that are—mmfh—" Courfeyrac lifted another sack; "that are far away."

"Well, not neces—" Enjolras started, but Courfeyrac wasn’t finished.

"So is it the same there as it is here?  Everything broken down and horrible?  Or do you think they have things different?  Like maybe they still know all the things Combeferre thinks we lost, and maybe people get to make more of their own choices?"

Enjolras paused in the process of picking up a sack of his own.  ”I think,” he said slowly.  ”That if things were different in any real way—like if they had more freedom—that they would spread that around to the rest of the world.”  He heaved the sack to his back and started back toward the building, stumbling over the jagged slabs of pavement.  ”If people live in freedom and—and knowledge—I don’t think they could keep it to themselves, not if they knew that other people didn’t have it.  I don’t see how they could.”

"It would change the way you think," Courfeyrac agreed, following after him, bent double under the load.  "At least, I hope so."

Around them, the first drops of rain pattered softly on the broken pavement.


	2. Chapter 2

"You know Canada?"

Combeferre pauses in the middle of twisting the wire into a coil to consider the question. “Do you mean, do I know what Canada is? Or do I know what they say about it? Or do I know where it is? Or is there a person named Canada, and you’re asking if I know them?”

"All of the above," Feuilly says, a flush traveling up his cheeks. "Except the last one. I don’t know anybody named Canada."

"Me neither." Combeferre looks back at his work. "Well, my answers are yes, I know what Canada is, at least generally. I know at least some of the things they say about it, but probably not everything. And no, I don’t know where it is."

"I wish somebody did," Feuilly sighs.

"Don’t we all—a place where all the books weren’t burned, where they haven’t forgotten everything we once knew, where they still remember how to use some of the tech?"

Feuilly laughs. “That one’s a little too far-fetched. But.” He strips the casing from a wire meditatvely, the dry-rotted rubber crumbling off between his fingers. “But if they have books—if  _that part_  at least is true. And schools.”

“ _We_  have schools.” Combeferre pauses again, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a grimy rag.

"You know it’s not the same. Schools where they learn to read. And … and I don’t know what else they  _would_  learn. But I’m sure there’s all sorts of important things. Useful things.”

"Courfeyrac told me they say in his community that it’s cooler there," Combeferre adds, glancing around the sweltering warehouse with a frown. "I wouldn’t say no to that, either."

"It was cooler in the community where I lived before," Feuilly says. "Up in the mountains. One time it even snowed. I wonder if that’s where Canada is, up in the mountains somewhere, higher even than Burnham. It’s how I imagine it, anyway."

"You think about it a lot, don’t you?" Combeferre asks, and Feuilly’s cheeks flush again.

"Yes," he admits. "I just—I just want to get out of here. To get somewhere where things are better. Where I can learn to read, where I don’t always have to be hiding everything."

"You know most of the stories are probably made up," Combeferre says gently. "We don’t even know if the place still exists—if it ever existed."

"I know," Feuilly says quickly. "But. If it does."


	3. Chapter 3

Courfeyrac waited until the watchmen had rounded the corner, then slipped across the darkened street, moving by feeling more than sight in the moonless night and willing his feet to miss the clumps of dry leaves and sticks. On the other side, he waited, pressed up against the wall, eyes straining in the darkness for the return of the latern’s flickering light.

When several long minutes passed, and no one appeared, he crept over to the door and gently pushed on it. The click of the latch was very loud in the empty street as the door swung inward—and then stopped with a gap of about six inches, secured from the inside. Courfeyrac considered the space, shook his head, and glanced back in the direction his own lodgings, two streets away.

But having come this far, he couldn’t bear to give up. Grimacing, he put his face to the gap and whispered hoarsely, “Joly!” Nothing. He tried again, a little louder. “Joly!”

Behind him, something clattered into the street, and Courfeyrac jumped half a foot, his heart clamoring in his ears. He forced himself to be silent, though his hands were shaking, and he was all too conscious of the sharp corners of the stiff, rectangular bundle pressed between his body and the wall of the house. It was just a piece of scrap falling from the building across the street, he told himself. The thing had been gutted and burned out from the inside decades ago, and everyone expected it to fall any day; not even Gavroche would go inside it for scrap. Of course it would make weird noises at night—even the building Courfeyrac lived in creaked and rattled when everything was quiet, and it was still ten or twenty years from falling down. It was nothing to worry about.

Then another sound came from somewhere in the darkness behind him, and Courfeyrac lost his nerve entirely. In a frantic, illogical panic, he shoved himself into the gap between the door and the frame, as if he could flatten out his body to fit through sheer determination.

"Who’s there?"

Courfeyrac froze instantly, realizing too late that his struggling was making a noticeable amount of noise. Then, recognizing Joly’s voice, he sagged against the doorframe. “Let me in, Joly.”

"Courfeyrac?" A faint white shape floated silently through the darkness toward the door. Something rattled, and then the door gave under Courfeyrac’s weight and he stumbled inside.

Joly shut the door immediately, blocking out even the faint starlight, and Courfeyrac groped blindly in the darkness for him.

"What are you doing here?" Joly’s urgent whisper came in a completely different direction than Courfeyrac had been searching in; he turned to face the source of the sound.

"I have something  _incredible_  to show you,” Courfeyrac breathed. Now that he was safe inside, the package bound to his back filled him with fluttering excitement instead of terror.

"In the middle of the night?"

"It couldn’t wait," Courfeyrac said. "Trust me. You’ll agree when you see it."

"All right," Joly said. "Well, come on upstairs where we can see."

Courfeyrac felt around in the pitch black and his hand lighted on the sleeve of Joly’s shirt. He followed it up to his friend’s bony shoulder. “Lead on.”

Joly moved quickly through the bottom level of the building, warning Courfeyrac in a low murmur of hazards. “Don’t go any farther left, there’s something dead on the floor there.”—“Careful, it’s kind of a sinkhole here.” The stairs creaked under their feet as they shuffled up them, one step at a time, and Courfeyrac was struck again by Joly’s insane optimism in choosing to live on the second floor of this building (and with Bossuet, no less, who seemed to have a knack for ending up in buildings just before they finally collapsed).

Safely in his room, with the door shut behind them, Joly put a couple of sticks on the small fire that nestled in a portable stove in the center of the room. Yellow flames flared up from them, illuminating Joly’s narrow face. On the mattress against the wall, Bossuet stirred and muttered something sleepily that Courfeyrac couldn’t make out.

"No, everything’s fine; go back to sleep," Joly said softly. "So, Courf. What’s worth risking a beating to show me in the middle of the night."

Courfeyrac grinned at him and stripped off his coat, then pulled his shirt up and over his head. He took a minute to flex his scrawny arms and display his slightly grimy chest, delighting in the mixture of bewilderment and amusement struggling with each other in Joly’s face. Trying to smother his laughter, he untied the scarf from around his waist and brought out the book.

"No," Joly gasped. "That’s not—Courfeyrac—is it—"

"It’s not complete," Courfeyrac admitted. "A lot of it was ripped out, or burned, or something. But there’s a  _lot_  of pages left. And Joly—there’s pictures of bones and guts and stuff. It’s a  _medical book._ ”

The look on Joly’s face was possibly the best thing Courfeyrac had seen in his life. His eyes grew huge and he flapped his hands, unable to speak. Hungrily, he grabbed at the book, and Courfeyrac handed it over with a delighted laugh.

Joly dropped to his knees beside the little fire and began flipping through the pages, his eagerness warring with the need to treat the ancient paper gently. At a diagram of what looked like a baby emerging from an egg-shaped sack, Joly dropped the book to his lap and started to do something somewhere between laughing and crying.

Bossuet rolled over, propping himself up on his elbow. “Are you okay?”

Joly nodded helplessly. “It—it’s a—a medical book,” he gasped. “It—it’s got broken bones, and the birth process, and—and—” he glanced down at the book again, and suddenly his face changed. “And I—” He left the sentence hanging, but his face looked like he’d just been punched in the stomach.

"Joly? What’s the matter?"

Joly brought the book closer to the firelight, slowly going over a line, his finger tracing under the words. He shook his head, flipped a few pages, and tried again. His lips moved soundlessly, his brow furrowing with effort. “It’s not English,” he said softly. “I can’t read it.”

Courfeyrac’s heart plummeted. “What? It’s not?” He only knew a few letters, but the writing had  _looked_  like English to him.

"No. I don’t know what it is. But I’m sure of it—none of these are words I know. I don’t know a lot about doctoring, but I would know  _some_  of the words … wouldn’t I?” His voice was hesitant. “Maybe real doctors had different names for _everything_. The way guts can be called intestines. Maybe I just don’t know enough to even read this book.”

"It can’t be theat," Bossuet assured him. "Even in a medical book, they have to use regular little words—and, is, the. You’d recognize those."

Joly looked back at the pages of the book, scanning the text again. His shoulders fell and he nodded. “You’re right. They don’t use any of those little words. It’s not English.” He brushed the back of his hand over his eyes and straightened up. “I’m sorry, Courf. You must have gone to such trouble for it.”

“ _I’_ m the one who should be sorry,” Courfeyrac sighed. “I got your hopes up, only for it to be useless because I didn’t think to find out if it was in English.” He grimaced. “I wondered how in the world I got such a good trade. I should have known it wasn’t just for my charm and good looks.”

"What did you trade for it?" Joly asked warily.

"Ah—nothing important," Courfeyrac shrugged, with studied nonchalance that betrayed the lie. "Don’t worry about it."

"We’ll keep it safe," Bossuet promised him. "And someday, someone new will come here—or we’ll go somewhere else—and there’ll be someone who can read it."


	4. Chapter 4

". . . And so saying, Aragorn raised his sword, and he fell upon the hosts of Sauron with a wild cry. And following after him came Gandalf the White, and then Legolas and Gimli, and all the army of Gondor, and Eomer with all the riders of Rohan.

"And when Pippin saw this, he too lifted up his voice in a battle cry, falling on the orcs with his little half-sized sword. And he was tossed in the battle like in the waves of the sea--that is, as the wind tosses the treetops--and he came up against a troll, one of the largest, most terrible of a all the creatures that fought for the dark land. And Pippin was the smallest in all the army of the west.

"But he raised his child's blade all the same, and with a cry of 'For Frodo and Sam! For Merry! For the good, green Shire!' he plunged it into the troll's great stomach. The creature shrieked, then began to sway like an ancient building. As it started to topple, Pippin scrambles to get out of the way, but it was too large, and the mud churned up by the battle clung to Pippin's feet and slowed his flight.

"But just before the heavy weight crushed him down into the mud, he heard a voice, distantly, crying out 'The Eagles!  The Eagles are coming!'"

Jehan finished the tale and sat back, taking a generous swallow from the flask Feuilly passed him. The light from the low embers of their fire played over his contented smile as his listeners reacted to the story--some of them applauding, others clamoring with questions.

"Not Pippin!" Courfeyrac wailed.  "I was so sure he'd be all right!"

"How do you  _remember_ all that?" Feuilly wanted to know.

"You didn't finish it."  Bahorel's voice carried over the commotion.  The others quieted down, eyeing the big man.  They'd picked him up only a few days ago, and no one had thought to warn him not to tangle with Jehan on his stories; Jehan took great pride in his profession, even though it was not officially recognized, and the last time someone had challenged his telling of a tale, he'd sulked for two days.

Jehan slowly turned to stare down Bahorel, Bossuet making a frantic "cut" gesture behind his back.  "What?"

"You didn't finish the story," Bahorel said evenly.  "You didn't tell what happens to Frodo and Sam."

"Ah, that's because the end of Frodo and Sam's tale does not exist," Jehan said.  He smiled, settling back into the tone of storytelling, and Bossuet mimed wiping his brow in relief.  "Perhaps it once did, and their fate has been lost, along with so much else, to the darkness that covers so much of our past.  Or perhaps--and I find something very beautiful in this interpretation--this truly is how the story ends."

"What?" Courfeyrac spluttered. "But--"

"The story ends with Pippin fighting an enemy much larger than he can hope to beat.  And though he does bring the troll down, he causes his own death in the process.  But as he falls, he hears a cry of hope--the Eagles are coming to assist in the battle, perhaps to turn the tide.  He doesn't know that his side will win the day, but he knows there's still hope.

"And from this, we can infer some things about what happens to Frodo and Sam.  We know they, like Pippin, are facing an enemy far more powerful than them; perhaps this means that, like Pippin, they will succeed against all odds, but die in the attempt, comforted only by the knowledge that their sacrifice may bring light to others.  We don't  _know_  that this is what happens--like Pippin, we only see a brief flicker of hope.  And that, too, is part of the meaning of--"

"I know what happens."  Bahorel spoke quietly, but Jehan froze at his words.

"What do you mean?"

"The story--I know the end.  What happens to Frodo and Sam.  And afterward, with Aragorn and the rest of the company, and what the hobbits find when they return to the Shire.  I heard it from another storyteller, traded what I knew of Hamlet for all the Lord of the Rings he could remember.  He didn't have half what you had--I've never heard that bit with Gollum in the cave before tonight--but he had the ending."

"I didn't know you were a storyteller," Feuilly said, and Bahorel laughed.

"I collect a lot of things.  Stories and songs as well as cast-off cloth--"

" _Tell me._ "  Jehan was practically on top of Bahorel, clutching his arm, his eyes hungry for the story.  "Tell me all the pieces you know--I'll trade any story you want--but  _tell me what happens._ "

Bahorel grinned and held out his hand for the flask.  He took a long drink, and then took up the story where Jehan had left off.

"While Pippin and Aragorn and all the rest were marching toward the Black Gate of Mordor, Frodo and Sam were marching as well, in disguise among a company of orcs being brought up to the gate to join in the battle.  The air of Mordor was foul with the stench of sulfur, and the sky dark with smoke, and Sam wondered if he'd ever see the light of the sun again . . ."


End file.
